CORDY RYMAN
(USA)
Born in 1971 in New York City, where he lives and works.
Cordy Ryman is an American artist working at the intersection of painting, sculpture, and installation. He is known for his experimental, playful, and materially conscious approach to art—often building his works from simple, “humble” materials such as wood, acrylic paint, glue, and repurposed elements. His practice moves between the intuitive and the structural, between studio-based works and site-specific installations where the rhythms and spatial energy of architecture play a central role.
“I work in two basic modes,” Ryman says—“one when I’m simply working in the studio without a specific process in mind... The second mode is more architectural and sometimes site specific in nature.” In the first case, the process itself determines the direction. In the second, he responds to concrete spaces, often using photographs and measurements as a starting point. For Ryman, the space becomes a kind of canvas, and the work grows out of it organically—like weeds, as he puts it, in the most positive sense of the word.
Ryman combines a vivid color language with a physical and craft-oriented approach, where surfaces, edges, layers, and joints give the works a raw yet refined presence. His art is not fixed abstraction, but rather something sensuous and exploratory—a continuous engagement with and reinterpretation of the language of modern painting.
He often creates large-scale installations that can be broken down into smaller elements and function as individual works. This gives his practice an openness and flexibility, where each piece becomes part of a larger conversation—with space, with the viewer, and with itself. In his hands, imperfection becomes something aesthetic and vital, allowing the inherent qualities of the materials to speak clearly.
Cordy Ryman’s first exhibition in Denmark took place in 2008 at Esbjerg Art Museum, in collaboration with Stalke Gallery, under the title One More. The show marked a significant encounter between his distinctive visual language and the Danish exhibition context, and it launched his European exhibition activity.
Ryman has been included in exhibitions at MoMA PS1 (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Miami), the Contemporary Arts Museum (Houston), the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Visual Arts Center (New Jersey), the Columbus College of Art & Design (Ohio), and Esbjerg Art Museum (Denmark). He has completed several public commissions, including a large-scale installation at Michigan State University and a permanent series of works for PS 11 Kathryn Phelan Elementary School in Queens, New York.
His work has been reviewed in publications such as Artforum, The New York Times, Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, Frieze, Time Out NY, and BOMB Magazine. His works are held in prominent collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, the Microsoft Art Collection, the Rubell Family Collection (Miami), the Raussmüller Collection (Switzerland), and the Pizzuti Collection (Columbus, OH).
In 2021, a major site-specific installation of Ryman’s works was installed at architect Morris Adjmi’s New York headquarters. He is the recipient of the Helen Foster Barnett Prize from the National Academy Museum and was the subject of the 2017 solo exhibition Free Fallat Tower 49 Gallery in New York—accompanied by a catalog featuring texts by John Yau and Jill Conner.
Cordy Ryman received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he continues to live and work.
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